Saturday, November 3, 2007

Union Buster Information, for Management And Employees

What is a union buster in FedEx Corporation? Well they are low scums of the earth who use management as a tool for their benefit and for the CEO’s benefit too.FedEx hires this high paid lawyers or union avoidance consultant, they are granted full power to run the company and they are management’s bosses also, now that, is a 3rd party in anyone’s eye.They use terminal managers, operation managers, supervisors to do their dirty work; they tell management if the Teamsters win the election, they are in the line of losing their job! That is a lie, not only are employees threaten for organizing in a Teamster union drive, but also managers, if there are any managers in this position, contact the (National Labor Relations Board) and find out if this is legal? Now if a manager is terminated because of employees organizing for Teamster power, will the union buster help the manager get their job back? No!Now if the employee participates in a union drive and is terminated, will the Teamsters fight for the employee’s rights? Yes!Don’t let a union buster take your rights as managers or as an employee!!We as an employee are only fighting for our rights, for a better pension and retired medical benefits, a better wage raise equal to the economy cost of living of 7% not 3% and when it comes to changing employee pension status or bonuses, let us have a say so first! Not just the CEOs ways!And let us create a Teamster contract, for equal rights and fairness, by putting our concerns in writing. It will make us a better company over all, between management and employees.Don’t Be Left Behind.

MISSION STATEMENTTeamsters: Organizing For Power Forming a union at your workplace gives you and your coworkers the power to stand up for your families, your futures and yourselves. Through a legal, binding contract it gives you a strong, collective voice with which to demand decent working conditions, with fair pay and benefits. That's what the Teamsters are all about: decent working conditions, better pay, strong benefits and dignity and respect on the job. Jeff Farmer Director The Teamsters can help you explain the benefits of union membership to your fellow employees, and assist in planning an organizing drive. Once you and your coworkers become Teamsters, working with your local union representatives, contract language and proposals for negotiations are developed. Local union officers and business agents fight with you to win a fair, good-paying Teamster contract with job protection that you deserve. Teamsters contracts are the best in the labor movement. We have earned our reputation for bargaining hard and demanding the best protections and wages. For more than a century, Teamsters solidarity has kept corporate America from holding the cards and calling all the shots. When you join the Teamsters, you put that history to work for you. We are the Teamsters. We are 1.4 million strong and our membership is growing. Join us. WE WIN WHEN WE STAND AS ONE.

For anybody who is unaware of the war that corporate America has waged against working people in this country, this book is a must-read. Levitt, who got into the business of union busting when it was still a fairly new field in the 1960s, was at one time one of the most sought-after union busters in the country. He billed clients thousands of dollars to crush union organizing drives, usually with a combination of intimidation and underhanded manipulation of frontline managers.

In the book, Levitt details how he became entangled in the field, and also provides a pretty good short history of union busting and the related federal laws and court cases. Companies busted unions for years before it became a legitimate field, at times aided by helpful laws. Unions made some gains in the early 20th century, many of which were stripped back by the Taft-Hartley and Landrum-Griffin Acts in 1947 and 1955, respectively. By the 1960s, men like Levitt were teaming with lawyers to form a powerful one-two punch that could attack the organizing drive both in the workplace and at the union local.

Levitt spent a number of years as a union buster, but eventually quit the field in disgust. Now, he works together with unions to help bust the busters, and educate workers on the types of tricks that people working in the field employ. Levitt tells a number of stories about organizing drives that he worked, and the various ways that he broke the union effort. The book was written in the early 1990s, but I think it's still very relevant today and it provides a decent primer on the interaction between unions and companies in the United States.

This has been a rough process. We’re currently out of work, on strike because the company unjustly fired one of my coworkers, and intimidated and videotaped us. The guy who’s now the regional vice president was telling guys he would never sign a union contract here.

We started organizing in May 2006 because we wanted the company’s promises to be written in a contract. The company had promised things and then they took them back, or never gave them to us at all. The problem was everything was made verbally -- nothing was written.

I was one of four people who started building our union here. Within three days, 21 of 26 guys had signed cards saying that they wanted to join the Teamsters. Soon after, the company’s intimidation and threats began. They said many times that they would close our facility if we chose to unionize.

The safety director videotaped me and Angelo Jackson -- who was one of the others who started building the union -- during work hours. We found out it is illegal to videotape someone without their permission. They said they videotaped other workers, as well, but the tape showed only me and Angelo.

They fired Angelo. They said it was for stealing time -- we don’t get paid hourly, so how could he be stealing time? They made sure I was present when he was fired, to intimidate me. At the same meeting, they tried to implicate me as one of the guys starting the union, trying to get me to say things. But I knew I was doing no wrong.

The company brought guys in who had one-on-one meetings, showed anti-union videos, would talk about how a union wasn’t good, wasn’t a force, that it would have no effect for the workers. None of us ran scared. We saw that the company was intimidated by us wanting a union -- the company was scared. We all stood together.

We voted by a wide margin to become Teamsters on July 20. We started negotiating with the company for our first contract. The first discussions went well, but then we hit a wall. What we were looking for wasn’t unreasonable. We want decent health insurance, a pension and what was originally promised: to be paid by a salary, sick leave and holiday pay.

We originally were paid by stops and miles, then we changed to a salary, which is what we wanted. When the company realized that we were better paid by the salary they changed it back to the stops-and-miles system. We were promised sick leave but that has never come about. They also promised me a managerial position when I first started working here but later didn’t remember anything about that. The thing is, they try and pump you up and then shoot you down.

We’re currently on strike over unfair labor charges. We’ve been out for three weeks. The company has hired scabs. One of their scabs hit me with a truck. We picketed in a circle on an area of the road and this guy just drove through the picket line.